Tuesday, June 18, 2013

P
President and CEO of Imagine Canada Blog @ Imagine Canada

eople are drawn to charities and nonprofits whether by need, by interest, by compassion or by the need to engage; yet its not always easy for organizations to garner support from, and tell their stories to, Canadians. Its hard

work, involving precious resources of time and money, and even in small communities organizations compete for each hour and every dollar. In recent years, both journalists and individuals have developed a more sophisticated approach to philanthropy, which has had both positive and negative results. For example, we know that donors do more research before making a donation and that is a good thing. I always say to people to do their homework before deciding who and what to support. But at the same time, this trend is increasingly leading us to look for easy methods and ranking systems that often use faulty metrics such as levels of administrative costs or fundraising ratios, as if these tell you anything about the impact or the results that an organization is having on the ground. That being said, public accountability, transparency and good governance are important and charities and nonprofits realize this. But it's not easy. And that's why Imagine Canada, with partners across the country has been working in recent years to help build tools and resources to make this easier for organizations large and small. To help organizations communicate their value propositions, Imagine Canada offers two unique programs. The first, CharityFocus.ca, profiles the publicly available information that each charity provides annually to the Canada Revenue Agency. This includes easy-to-read charts and graphs, a list of their board members, their fundraising methods and compensation levels. The info for all 86,000 Canadian charities is there for all Canadians to view. However, Ive long said that you cant judge the impact that an organization has, or their results, based on numbers alone. In fact, that would be a big mistake. To demonstrate their transparency and to better tell their stories, we are encouraging charities to upload contextual information such as program brochures, annual and financial reports, and social media feeds to their profiles. This is really easy to do and there is no cost. To give you an idea, have a look at how we customized our own profile page on CharityFocus. A companion resource found on the CharityFocus site is the T3010 QuickPrep. Part of Imagine Canadas efforts to encourage transparency in the sector, the free QuickPrep is the answer to charities annual tax filings. It is both sophisticated and simple, in that it offers detailed pop-up tips and definitions, and that its almost impossible to make a mistake or omit information. What does that have to do with transparency? An overriding objective of the QuickPrep is to improve the quality of data submitted to the CRA. When Canadians can look at correct information about a charity, everyone benefits. You may recall Bill C-470, the proposed legislation to cap compensation and to increase disclosure in the charitable sector. Imagine Canadas argument against this proposed legislation was to not add further regulation to the charitable and nonprofit sector, but rather for the sector to ensure that it operates transparently, and allows Canadians easy access to the information they want to see. This is was a major impetus for CharityFocus. The second initiative is our Standards Program, a capacity building programme as well as a voluntary, peer-reviewed accreditation process designed to help both charities and nonprofits improve and monitor their practices in five fundamental areas:

board governance; financial accountability and transparency; fundraising; staff management; and volunteer involvement.
Among the programs goals are the ability to increase an organizations transparency and capacity, and to strengthen public confidence in individual organizations and the sector as a whole. Once accredited, organizations can benefit from the use of the Program Trustmark on their promotional and fundraising material, their website and elsewhere to indicate that they have been evaluated by their peers and found to be compliant with rigorous, externally established standards. The Standards Program helps organizations mitigate their risk by ensuring that they have the right policies and procedures in place to be an effective organization. Developed policies and procedures help staff focus on the mission of their organization, knowing that potential areas of concern have been addressed and that policies are in place. This is a program as relevant for small organizations as for larger ones. Currently, some 25% of participants have less than five staff members. Findings from the Muttart Foundations Talking About Charities (2008) report show that fully 77% of Canadians surveyed trust charities. It comes as no surprise that 96% feel its important for charities to share information about their impact, but only 38% feel that organizations are doing this well. As a sector, we can do a better job of educating Canadians about not only the value of our work but the realistic costs associated with our services. We must view the increased public scrutiny as an opportunity to provide answers. Whether its improving our quality of data, demonstrating our transparency or pledging to meet best practices and standards, tools are in place to help us get there. I hope you will find them helpful.